Pa. couple gets hitched during National Pike Festival

Little about Buster Lucas’ wedding Friday to his bride, Betty Cogan, was traditional.

Her gown was blue not white; his “suit” was denim.


Half of the guests were strangers.

And the officiant, Pastor Duane Jensen of the Hancock United Methodist Church, wore a polo shirt and jeans.

“We’d done that before,” Buster said of a traditional wedding.

Both he and Betty had been married previously, they said.

“This is us,” said Betty, smiling at her guests.

The Warfordsburg, Pa., couple took their vows at Plumb Grove Mansion in Clear Spring amid the festivities for the 2011 National Pike Festival.

Before their Western-themed wedding, the couple stood together in the mansion’s withdrawing or “marriage” room.

In her hands, Betty held her bouquet. But it was not trimmed in ribbon or sparkling with crystals; it was formed inside a white cowboy hat, similar to the one on Buster’s head.

Neither bride nor groom was nervous as they waited to become man and wife.

Instead, the couple reveled in the unique relaxation of their special day, not hesitating to laugh when their music took a while to play or to kiss passionately both before and after the ceremony.

Only one thing Friday fit the traditional wedding mold and that was the love between Buster and Betty.

Introduced at a gathering of friends, Betty, who said she never saw herself married or having children, said she found love when she met Buster.

After getting engaged, she asked her groom if he would really wear his wedding band, meant to be a symbol of their commitment to one another.

Buster’s response? It will stay on his finger as long as he’s married to Betty, he said.

And that, he said, will be the rest of his life.

Both Betty and Buster credited their friend, Jeanne Ward, for making their special day happen.

“It couldn’t have been better,” Ward said of the ceremony.

Ward said she invited the couple to ride in the wagon train with her and her husband, Wayne. And while it was the couple’s idea to have the wedding at the festival, it was Ward’s idea to make it public, she said.

Like most newlyweds, Ward said Betty and Buster would have a special ride from their nuptials and a honeymoon suite.

Only their ride would be a 100-year-old wagon, pulled by two mules, complete with a sign that reads, “just hitched,” to let everyone along the National Pike know they had just gotten married.

And their honeymoon suite would be a small tent in the shade of a tree, complete with flowers and a smidgen of well-deserved privacy.

National Pike Festival activities

Saturday, May 21
• Plumb Grove, Clear Spring — 6 to 9 a.m. breakfast available for purchase; harnessing and hitching, 6-9 a.m. Wagon train departs at 9 a.m. Parade at 9:30 a.m.
• Wilson Store and Bridge, U.S. 40, east of Clear Spring, above Conococheague Creek. —  10:30 a.m. wagon train stops. Crosses Wilson Stone Bridge, 11:15 a.m.
• Huyett’s Crossroads (Wacohu Grange), 100 yards west of U.S. 40 and Md. 63 intersection — Noon to 12:30 p.m., wagon train stops. Breakfast available for purchases 7:30-11 a.m. Chicken barbecue for sale to support scholarship program. Bake sale and flea market.
• Hagerstown City Park — 2 to 2:30 p.m., wagon train stop. Hager House open for tours 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free pony rides 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Washington County Museum of Fine Arts open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Ravenwood Lutheran Village, Kenly Avenue, Hagerstown — Brief stop at 3:30 p.m.
• Funkstown Community Park — Wagon train overnight encampment beginning at 5:30 p.m.

Sunday, May 22
• Funkstown Community Park —
wagon train departs at 10 a.m.
• Boonsboro — Auction Square Market Place, Alternate U.S. 40, noon, wagon train stops for lunch. Departs, 12:45 p.m.
• Boonsboro’s Shafer Memorial Park — 1:30 p.m., wagon train arrives, final stop. Free pony rides, blacksmith demonstration, food for purchase.